Shaken, not just stirred

The terror attack which took Mumbai hostage for around 60 hrs has left me shaken; and not just stirred, as I usually had been on getting reports of bomb blasts in various Indian cities throughout 2008. Maybe some part of that can be attributed to my proximity to the incident which exacerbated my reaction. But, for the other parts, I am trying to find a reasons. And these reasons are perhaps only mine, and may well not be a representation of general populace.

I have become used to hearing about coordinated bomb blasts as a form of terrorism. (Well, that raises a question, what state of antipathy and resignation do I live in if I have become accustomed to such dastardly acts involving loss of human life?) Such events happen in a small span of time. They do leave behind a trail of blood and human tragedy, but they get over quickly. The particular city rebounds. On-lookers come on to see what is happening, maybe even lend a helping hand or two. Statesmen make flash visits to the site and then to the hospitals. Self-claimed strategic experts speak eloquently in media on what can be done to spruce up our intelligence agencies.

This attack was not like the above. It had a face. It was mobile. It was dynamic. It stretched to hours. It took hostages. It was both proactive as well as reactive. It was unpredictable. It targeted places of symbolic significance.

When I first heard of firings and news reports at around 2230 hrs on 26th Nov, somewhere I had the assurance that this is Mumbai and the matter will be swiftly dealt with. After all, how bad can firing incidents get? And this city has probably the best police force in entire nation. It was this last fact, which was soon going to be turned on its head.

The news channels flashed the image of ATS Chief Hemant Karkare donning his head gear and bulletproof vest to get going in the action. "ATS Chief has arrived, now it is just matter of few hours." Those were my thoughts. But after 2 hrs., the same channels reported that he was KIA. And not just him, in quick succession two other senior and star officers of Mumbai Police were reported KIA. It was then that I was hit hard, and a sense of terror engulfed me. They got 3 senior officials, and the situation is nowhere under control? Maybe it was the same time that Maharashtra Chief Minister and Indian Home Minister too realized that they are up against something they can't control through normal measures. Maybe it was then that someone who had to decide finally decided that NSG, along with whatever immediate support could be available (MarCos and Army Commandos), needed to be sent in. That span of 10 min. was when the gravity of this incident sunk into me.

To add to the terror then were the images of terrorists roaming in South Mumbai streets in a hijacked Police van! They drove close past a group of unsuspecting journalists and opened fire. The fact of loss of top police officers had unsettled me, and then it seemed as if the terrorists had taken control of police infrastructure itself.

It was a long night which followed. Some more damage was still left to be done. That came with the images of Taj Hotel heritage wing burning against the black, night sky. I have stayed there twice - once for AVB Scholarship interviews and then for some function related to my TAS summer internship. I have seen this as a symbol in umpteen number of movies and footages which revere Mumbai as "the city of dreams" and "the Maximum City". The shock of such an unimaginable thing actually happening was huge, and personal.

In the two days which followed, I kept hearing personal trauma stories. My friend's colleague's fiancé (marriage due next month) got shot. MD of my firm lives in NCPA building, right next to Oberoi, and he was sending mails that he can hear the sound of firing and grenade explosion and "it is really, really scary". Later, NSG commandos actually took position in NCPA to launch counter-strike. CEO of my roommate's firm walked in between bullet spray in Taj because he believed "his time was not yet up" and miraculously escaped when others around him got shot. A batch-mate was at Leopold when firings started and he saw two of his friends getting shot; one getting a fatal head shot, other getting a leg shot. At least two batch-mates reported remaining holed up in their office the entire night as their office are next to Oberoi and they hadn't left when the firings started. An IIMA professor was stuck inside Oberoi and he was rescued after 24 hrs. A friend's firm's chairman got killed in Oberoi. A friend stays close to Nariman House and was posting his own pics of the operations on Orkut.

These are personal stories. Not like hearing, xx no. of casualties in the current bomb-blast. Maybe, I as a member of particular social class normally doesn’t get affected by these incidents. However, this time, the target was this very social class. Somewhere in my social circle, somebody was affected.

My personal face-off with the terror occurred when a rumor of fresh firings spread at CST spread on 28th noon. News traveled fast. My house faces a main, busy street. People started running in opposite direction to that of VT. Shops started pulling down their shutters. Vehicles made U-turns in the middle of the road. The lane going towards CST became empty. Then, the vehicles started using both the lanes to rush in opposite direction to CST. It was chaos and panic. It was terror. It reminded me eerily of the Joker in Dark Knight. Look what these guys did to a city with some rounds of ammunition and meticulous planning. They got to the police, they got to a symbolic landmark and they got to business elite. When this happens, no one feels safe. If the top of the social pyramid can be taken hostage, the base of the pyramid has no clue about their safety.


This time, I was shaken, not just stirred.

What is the takeaway?

This may strike a chord with few of my friends who are voracious devourers of "information" off various media, prominent being the Web.

As a testimony to my eclectic nature, perhaps, I find almost any topic under the sun to arise my curiosity. It inevitably results in long hours spent scanning the sources of info, again primarily the web. The hyperlinks on web pages lead to a drilled down exploration of the subject matter. However, more often than not, the drilling is more sideways than vertical. That is to say, the links to some other allied topic. Few such lateral moves, and I may be reading something quite far removed from where I started. It gives a joy of exploration. On a sarcastic note, some may even call it a manifestation of Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The problem I am increasingly facing is that of lack of retention of information I gained after spending valuable time in the exploration activity. As the subject matters get diverse, the attention gets spread too thin. The context switch from one topic to another gives thrill in the moment of exploration. But when asked later, maybe just after some hours, to give a brief on what was the takeaway on a particular topic, the brain just skips a beat (or a neuron synapse, to be more correct). It becomes tough to recall what was read. Sometimes, absolute zero looms on the mental projection screen.

This leads to some really frustrating moments. With limited time at disposal to pursue various activities in life (for professional development, personal enrichment or entertainment purposes), it appears that the time spent on the knowledge hunt went a complete waste. Once the moment of discovery of some new fact or information has passed, it is important that the piece of information to be parked somewhere in the memory. It should allow itself to be easily referenced, accessed and retrieved when the need arises.

What is the solution?

An easy one which comes to mind is to assess whether memory retentivity has reduced. It is a scary thought in itself. However, it may very well be possible if the brain is not getting enough "jog" in the daily routine. If one is only devouring info but not explicitly "thinking" about it, brain's memory creating abilities through techniques of "association" and "repetition" do not come into play. On a more general level, if one is not getting to solve couple of puzzles / riddles here and there, not doing quick numeric calculations once in a while, or just not getting exposed to quick witty humor, the brain's overall ability to fire cylinders when required may get reduced. Physical exercise plays as another important factor. A lazy body cannot host an active brain.

The difficult solutions to arrive at are related to changes in habit of such knowledge exploration, limiting exposure to a select set of subject matters or arriving at superior indexing mechanism. Let me take them up one at a time.

Knowledge exploration habit, like any other habit, may be quite difficult to change. It is the urge to explore the unknown which drives one to surf through the endless hyperlinks. The solution may lie not in curtailing the habit but actually taking it one step forward. One can try to write a short note, or just simply recall, on some of the topics he/she read during the course of the day. Forcing oneself to remember the subject matter may enhance the memory of it. Brain does not like gaps in info. It will quickly figure out that if only few disassociated scraps of subject matter are recallable, there must exist missing links. If the source material is ready at hand, one can then quickly glance through and fix the cracks. If the research done on the topic was exhaustive, writing a note summarizing the flow of ideas will be the best way to go about. This also provides a quick personal reference guide when one needs to access that information.

Limiting exposure to select of subjects is again about restraining one's habit. This appears to be a more difficult solution than the first one, depending on the extent of eclectic nature. Moreover, this problem is fluid rather than being static. The topics of preference change over time with new experiences, times and even with mood swings. How does one limit to a select set of subject matters is a difficult one to answer.

A superior indexing mechanism seems to be a clever idea. It does not demand curtailing habits of knowledge exploration and preserve the joy of the act. One scheme can be to use browser bookmarks extensively. You are outsourcing the brain's job to the software. Now, you have to just remember that you filed a particular piece of info for ready reference in a fixed location. If the browser provides for a superior bookmarking features (categories, folder structure, cloud view etc.), the source matter can be quickly accessed.

The clever solution (which does not appear so clever anymore now), will work if one is always connected to the Web whenever the need for such a info arises. It does not work in most practical situations. Especially when one is looking at using the info gathered in business situations and want the anecdotes / figures / facts to come out spontaneously and aid in business discussions. Now, this is what they call getting a bang for your buck. The buck here is the precious commodity "time" spent in consuming information. The bang is the timely and rightful use of it.

We tend to read X no. of blogs, Y no. of new sources, Z no. of dedicated magazines. We live in a connected world. Information explodes around us. Companies like Google realize that just making all this information easily searchable is a big money spinning business. Still, Google's help is only a reactive mechanism. You have to search for information when you require it. Any proactive mechanism ultimately has to reside in the brain itself. Proactive mechanism has to make use of the information already consumed and not start afresh in the hunt for it.

And that is the unsettling question which the post is asking. What is the takeaway? Or rather, how to ensure that you have a useful takeaway which can be taken out of brain when it is required? Those who have faced or are facing this predicament, do post your thoughts and discuss any solutions which come to your mind. That should be a good takeaway to have, once some useful ideas are here.

Hiatus A Deux

It has been a very long hiatus on this space for both me and Morpheus. The last post was published some 8 months ago. First quarter of 2008 saw me going through the rigmarole of campus placements. Once that long drawn process reached its happy conclusion, I headed to Himalayas (literally) to cool off. On my return, a beaming Neo walked the dais to get awarded with PGDM honor. Sweat and blood! What followed was a long due long break at home. It was after 5 years that I was getting to stay for an extended period of time in home town and with family. As May ended, I packed my bags to touchdown at Mumbai. The new home. Past 3 months have been a mix of trials & tribulations and survivals & jubilations. House hunt in Mumbai is a perspiring (humid hot) and jaw-dropping (astronomical real estate prices) experience. And the second go at corporate world is very much different from the previous one. That deserves a long post in itself. I am holding on that post till I have seen enough to make any justifiable comparisons.

All these and some more have kept me busy over the last 8 months. Too busy to return to the blog. Time to find my voice again. Time to make this blog alive again. But, where is Morpheus?